Video: Philip Henry Gosse in Alabama

On October 4, 2007, Auburn University Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology professor Gary Mullen presented a lecture on Alabama author Philip Henry Gosse. This lecture was presented as part of the Discover Auburn series. Videos from this series are now available online as part of the Auburn University Digital Library.

The Discover Auburn lecture series is presented jointly by the Auburn University Libraries, the Auburn University Bookstore, and the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University.

Watch Prof. Gary Mullen's lecture "Philip Henry Gosse: A Naturalist's View of Dallas County, Alabama in 1838."

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Maiben Beard on Talk with Tonya

The Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities' own Maiben Beard was interviewed by WSFA 12 News's Tonya Terry on Talk with Tonya this past Monday (April 6) about the upcoming Alabama Book Festival (Saturday April 18, 9-5, Old Alabama Town, Montgomery).

Watch WSFA's Talk with Tonya. Click on the icon (left-hand side) for the April 6 episode. Maiben's interview appears about 24 minutes into the program.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: ArchiTreats at ADAH

The Alabama Department of Archives and History has made videos of its "ArchiTreats: Food for Thought" lectures available online. This series features leading experts speaking on topics in Alabama history. ArchiTreats is sponsored by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and the Alabama Humanities Foundation.

Watch videos from ArchiTreats: Food for Thought online.

If you live or work in or near Montgomery, you can attend ArchiTreats in person. Lectures are held at the Archives (624 Washington Avenue) at noon on the third Thursday of the month. Bring a sack lunch; coffee and tea are provided free of charge. ArchiTreats is free and open to the public.

See the 2009 ArchiTreats schedule (PDF format).

Directions to the Archives and parking information (html format).

Directions to the Archives and parking information (PDF format).

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: New Video Player from Embedr

If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will notice that we have a new embedded video player.

Last month, the supplier of our old player, Splashcast™, discontinued its free service. Although the Splashcast™ player still worked for the videos we had already selected, it was no longer possible for us to add videos.

Our new player is from Embedr, a free service that allows us to create a playlist of videos and present them to you. We think you'll be happy with the switch.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Alabamians on Southern Spaces

Southern Spaces is a free online scholarly journal from the Robert W. Woodruff Library of Emory University. The journal publishes multimedia essays and presentations on "the real and imagined places of the American South."

Some of the videos found on Southern Spaces will be of special interest to Alabamians. These are available in Real Media, Windows Media, and QuickTime versions.

Natasha Trethewey, poem "Elegy for the Native Guards"

Natasha Trethewey, poem "Theories of Time and Space"

Jake Adam York, seven poems

Jake Adam York, four poems

John Howard, lecture on memoir by Alabamian Ben Duncan

Minnie Bruce Pratt, poem "No Place"

Minnie Bruce Pratt, lecture

Gwen Patton, tour of the Civil Rights Archive at Trenholm State Technical College

William Christenberry, lecture on the influences on his art

Wayne Flynt, lecture on Alabama's regions

Susan Pace Hamill, lecture on Alabama's timber and its influence on the state's economy

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Audio: Alabama Author Podcasts from AFN

The Atlanta Forum Network (part of Public Broadcasting Atlanta) provides free access to podcasts of public lectures and readings. Many of these are readings by and/or discussions with recently published authors. They take place at venues such as the High Museum of Art, the Georgia Center for the Book, and the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum.

Some of these files are in RealPlayer format and some are in Windows Media format. To install RealPlayer, download the free version from the RealPlayer installers page. To install Windows Media Player, download the free version from the Windows Media Player installers page.

If you prefer to save files for later listening, some audios are available as downloadable mp3 files through the WGBH Forum Network, a partner program to AFN. To download, right-click on the "MP3 Download" link and choose "Save Link As ..." (Firefox) or "Save Target As ..." (Internet Explorer). (Left-clicking the link will cause the mp3 file to stream using your default media player.)

American Wars, American Peace (Philip K. Beidler)

The Prince of Frogtown (Rick Bragg)

Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man (Arnold Rampersad)

Download mp3 audio of Rampersad/Ellison lecture

Resisting History: Gender, Modernity, and Authorship (Barbara Ladd on Zora Neale Hurston)

Download mp3 audio of Ladd/Hurston lecture

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming (Joshilyn Jackson)

Queen of Broken Hearts (Cassandra King)

Download mp3 audio of King reading

Meet the Poet: Sonia Sanchez

Gay Talese: His Portraits and Encounters

Georgia Review: Natasha Trethewey and Stephen Dunn

Download mp3 audio of Trethewey and Dunn readings

Poetry Readings: Natasha Trethewey

Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Musician (Daniel Wallace)

Download mp3 audio of Wallace discussion

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Audio: More Alabama Authors on iTunes

iTunes U is the section of the iTunes Store that has video and audio podcasts created by colleges and universities. These materials include lectures, broadcasts, and learning resources created specifically for students.

All the materials listed here can be downloaded to your computer for free. Some of them can also be streamed, that is, accessed from within iTunes without downloading.

The iTunes software is also free but you must have it on your computer to access these materials. You can get it from the iTunes download page of the Apple Web site.

Stanford University's Stanford Book Salon features author interviews and discussions. These are available free as audio podcasts and can be either downloaded or streamed. Two of the authors interviewed for this series are Alabama authors Tobias Wolff and Nancy Huddleston Packer.

Audio for Book Salon interview with Tobias Wolff

Audio for Book Salon discussion of Wolff's In Pharoah's Army: Memories of the Lost War

Audio for Book Salon interview with Nancy Huddleston Packer

Audio for Book Salon discussion of Packer's Angle of Repose

The University of New Orleans' New Orleans Literature Series consists of lectures on works by authors associated with that city. These are available free as both video and audio podcasts. Both can be downloaded, and the audio podcasts can be streamed. Two of the authors discussed in this lecture series are Alabama authors Shirley Ann Grau and Walker Percy.

Video for lecture on Shirley Ann Grau's House on Coliseum Street

Audio for Grau lecture

Video for lecture on Walker Percy's The Moviegoer

Audio for Percy lecture

American Public Media's American Radioworks program Say It Plain: Great African American Oratory is a radio documentary about black oratory and its role in the Civil Rights Movement. Along with the audio podcast of the documentary, iTunes U also has audio recordings of speeches by black orators and transcripts of those speeches. These free materials can be downloaded, and the audio materials can be streamed. Two of the orators included in this project are Alabama authors Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Audios and transcripts for Say It Plain: Great African American Oratory

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Alabama Authors at the National Book Festival

On September 27, representatives from the Alabama Center for the Book will be in Washington, D.C., for the National Book Festival which is organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress. The Festival is a day-long event where representatives from Centers for the Book around the country provide information about their states' literary activities. There will also be presentations by authors, illustrators, and poets throughout the day.

Videos of presentations from previous Festivals are available online at the Library of Congress Webcasts page. Alabama authors who have made presentations include Gail Godwin, Natasha Trethewey, John Lewis, Andrew Hudgins, and Sena Jeter Naslund.

These videos are presented in the RealPlayer® format. If you don't have the necessary plug-in, you can get a free version of RealPlayer® at the Real.com Web site.

If you have difficulties with streaming video files or if you want to watch at a later time, you can also download one or more of these videos to your computer. Click on "Launch in a new window" and choose "Save File". (You will still need the RealPlayer® plug-in to watch the downloaded files.)

Watch Gail Godwin at the 2001 National Book Festival.

Watch Natasha Trethewey at the 2004 National Book Festival.

Watch John Lewis at the 2004 National Book Festival.

Watch Andrew Hudgins at the 2005 National Book Festival.

Watch Sena Jeter Naslund at the 2007 National Book Festival.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Randall Williams of NewSouth Books on APT's Face to Face

On August 24, NewSouth Books' Randall Williams was interviewed by Lori Cummings on the Alabama Public Television program Face to Face. Williams discussed the philosophy of NewSouth Books, the realities of the publishing business, and what a prospective author should know when dealing with a book publisher.

NewSouth Books is headquartered in Montgomery, Ala. NewSouth authors profiled on This Goodly Land include John Beecher, Virginia Pounds Brown, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, Oxford Stroud, Sue Walker, and Kathryn Tucker Windham.

This program can now be viewed online. The program opens with an interview with first-time author Chris Hagler. Randall Williams' interview starts at about 7:45 min into the show.

Watch NewSouth Books' Randall Williams on APT's Face to Face.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Update: William Bartram Lecture Now on YouTube

The William Bartram lecture given by Dr. John C. Hall (discussed in an earlier entry) has just been made available on YouTube.

Watch Dr. Hall's lecture on William Bartram on YouTube.

We have also added Dr. Hall's lecture to our SplashCast™ channel. To watch it here, scroll down and click on the Start button.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

SplashCast™ Added to Blog

If you scroll down a bit, you'll find a new addition to our This Goodly Land blog. The SplashCast™ application allows us to bring videos together from different sources and make them available to you in one convenient place.

We are currently showcasing the videos from the Albert Murray Symposium (mentioned in an earlier blog entry).

Click on the Start button in the middle of the screen to begin the Albert Murray "show" with the Introduction video. Hover your mouse cursor over the lower portion of the screen to access the controls and/or to select one of the other videos in this "show."

Click on the More Shows button to see videos on Tom Franklin, Homer Hickam, and Edward O. Wilson. We'll add more videos on our authors as they become available and/or as we locate them.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Winston Groom on Profiles with Wendy Garner

This past May, the Alabama Public Television series Profiles with Wendy Garner broadcast an interview with Alabama author Winston Groom (profiled on This Goodly Land). You can watch this interview as streaming video.

Watch "Winston Groom" on Profiles with Wendy Garner online.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Edward O. Wilson on NOVA

This past May, the PBS series NOVA broadcast "Lord of the Ants," a program about Alabama scientist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dr. Edward O. Wilson (profiled on This Goodly Land).

When you visit the "Lord of the Ants" Web page, you will find an interview with Dr. Wilson, an excerpt from his autobiography, Naturalist, and capsule summaries for twelve of his books. For the time being at least, you can also watch the program online as streaming video.

Watch "Lord of the Ants" online.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: William Bartram Lecture by Dr. John C. Hall

On March 27, 2008, the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities of the College of Liberal Arts in Auburn University sponsored "Bartram's Travels," a lecture about the explorations of Alabama author William Bartram (profiled on This Goodly Land).

The lecture was given by Dr. John C. Hall as part of the Draughon Seminars in State and Local History. Read more about Dr. Hall and the Draughon Seminars here.

Dr. Hall's lecture was recorded and has been made available online.

Download Dr. John C. Hall's "Bartram's Travels" lecture as a free podcast from iTunes.

You must already have the iTunes software on your computer to download this video. You can download the application from the iTunes Home Page.

If you have trouble with the above link, open your browser and go to the Auburn University iTunes page.

Click on the OPEN AU ITUNES link in the center of the page. You will get a pop-up window asking you to launch iTunes. Click on Launch Application. (Again, you must already have the iTunes software on your computer.)

The iTunes Store will open up at the Auburn University section. Click on the icon for the College of Liberal Arts, then click on the icon for Outreach. There will be two tabs (like file folder tabs) near the bottom of the page. Click on the Public Lectures tab. "Bartram's Travels" is the second lecture in the list. Click on the Get Movie button to begin your download.

(This video file is large and has a very long download time. You may need to download very early in the day or late at night to avoid having the system time out.)

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: Albert Murray Symposium online

On January 23, 2008, the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities, with the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts in Auburn University, the Auburn University English Department, and Tuskegee University, sponsored "Albert Murray and the Aesthetic Imagination of a Nation: A Symposium," a scholarly examination of the life and work of Alabama author Albert Murray (profiled on This Goodly Land).

The symposium sessions were recorded and have been made available online. You can watch them as streaming video from YouTube or download them as free video podcasts from iTunes.

Watch the symposium on YouTube:

"Introduction." Speakers: Mark Wilson, Anne-Katrin Gramberg, Auburn University (9:11)

Session One, Part One: "Jack the Rabbit and an Alabama Briar Patch." Speaker: Jay Lamar, Auburn University (19:30)

Session One, Part Two: "Cosmos Murray and the Aesthetic Imagination of a Nation." Speaker: Barbara A. Baker, Tuskegee University (25:54)

Session Two, Part One: "Albert Murray and Tuskegee Institute: Art As the True Measure of Place." Speaker: A. Caroline Gebhard, Tuskegee University (27:58)

Session Two, Part Two: "Confrontation and Transcendence in Twenty-First Century Blues." Speaker: Jackie McCorvey, Jr., Tuskegee University (14:31)

Session Three, Part One: "Albert Murray and Visual Art." Speaker: Paul Devlin, Stony Brook University (SUNY) (32:11)

Session Three, Part Two: "Dewey's Pragmatism Extended: Education and Aesthetic Practice in Train Whistle Guitar." Speaker: Roberta S. McGuire, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh (27:32)

Session Four, Part One: "Murray and Mann: Variations on a Theme." Speaker: Lauren Walsh, Columbia University (23:56)

Session Four, Part Two: "Murray's Mulatto America." Speaker: Maurice Pogue, Michigan State University (26:33)

Session Five, Part One: "Chinaberry Tree, Chinaberry Tree." Speaker: Bert Hitchcock, Auburn University (26:31)

Session Five, Part Two: "Hyphens, Heroes, and Dragons: A Conversation with Albert Murray." Speaker: Don Noble, University of Alabama (12:01)

Keynote Session: "'It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing': Albert Murray, Omni-American." Speaker: John Callahan, Lewis and Clark College (56:44)

Keynote Questions. Speaker: John Callahan (4:44)

Download the symposium as free podcasts from iTunes:

Open your browser and go to the Auburn University iTunes page.

Click on the OPEN AU ITUNES link in the center of the page. You will get a pop-up window asking you to launch iTunes. Click on Launch Application. (You must already have the iTunes software on your computer to download these videos. You can download it from the iTunes Home Page.)

The iTunes Store will open up at the Auburn University section. Click on the icon for the College of Liberal Arts, then click on the icon for the Albert Murray symposium. The symposium sessions will now be available for you to download.

(These video files are very large and have long download times. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, you may need to download them one at a time to prevent the system from timing out. )

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

Video: "Where Are You From?"

Back in the fall of 2006, when we were getting This Goodly Land ready for public launch, we knew that we would have to address the issue of what constitutes an "Alabama author." We saw and liked an essay written by Todd Keith, then editor of PORTICO Magazine, on what it means to be a Birmingham writer. We asked Todd if he would adapt this to Alabama writers as a whole, and he agreed. "Literary Alabama: Is There Such a Thing As an 'Alabama Writer'?" has been on our site from the beginning.

This past spring, we asked local author and Auburn University English instructor Peter Huggins to make a video with us and say something about his relationship with Alabama. Fortunately for us, Peter had recently published an essay on the meaning of place in literature, and he adapted it for our purpose. The resulting video, "Where Are You From?", is now on our Web site and available for viewing.

Midge Coates, Project Manager
This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape